


of last resort

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Series: Out of Season [10]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Calormen, Caretaking, Gen, Orphans, Priestesses, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-09 12:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1982433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Shezan deals with orphans at the Ulvaan temple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of last resort

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in longhand one evening at work during November 2012. It was going to be a Cotton Candy Bingo fill, for the prompt _babysitting_ , but it never really clicked so I left it as a tiny scenario-sketch rather than a proper fic.
> 
> This is set three years after [To Every Thing There Is a Season](http://archiveofourown.org/works/387200) and nine years before [Out of Season](http://archiveofourown.org/works/272381), during Shezan's time at the temple in Ulvaan; she is eighteen years old and will soon take her formal oaths to become a full priestess.

As the eldest of the pledged novices, it was Shezan's responsibility to open the main doors of Achadith's temple every day at dawn and the start of the first hour. The temple never truly closed, of course, but the doors were a symbol of welcome. The water in the basins at the feet of the guardian statues also needed to be changed in order to remove dust and any other contaminants that might have appeared overnight.

Occasionally other things appeared as well.

Shezan blinked down at the crying toddler on the broad, shallow steps of the temple, its limbs firmly wrapped in undyed cotton to keep it from wandering away. The child turned its small head to face her and cried harder, wriggling within its constraints.

Within _her_ constraints, Shezan realized after a moment's thought. A boy would have been left at Tash's temple on the western end of the great, dusty bowl of the ancient battleground, beyond the memorial grove and labyrinth. Or perhaps not -- sometimes Achadith's role as the guardian of the displaced outweighed other considerations -- but in either case, there was no use standing like a fool.

She knelt and began to free the child's limbs from the imprisoning cloth.


End file.
